Despite allegations of serious abuse in immigration detention centers, the UK
persisted in not imposing a maximum time limit for immigration detention, and
continued to detain asylum-seeking and migrant children.

This is from the January 2018 report (pdf) from the Human Rights Watch (HRW). World Report 2018 is their 28th annual review of human rights
practices around the globe.

The report summarises key human rights issues in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide, drawing on events from late 2016 through November 2017.

The report finds:

Germany over the past year made headlines when the Alternative for Germany (AfD) became the first far-right party to enter its parliament in decades
Despite a strong tradition of protecting civil and political rights, Australia has serious unresolved human rights problems. Australia continued in 2017 to hold asylum seekers who arrived by boat on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea and on the island nation of Nauru, where conditions are abysmal
Bahrain’s human rights situation continued to worsen in 2017. Authorities shut down the country’s only independent newspaper and the leading secular-left opposition political society.
In Bangladesh, civil society groups faced pressure from both state and non-state actors, including death threats and attacks from extremist groups.

‘Black women potentially suffer a double burden of bias that keeps them from the uppermost levels of corporate leadership’.

This is according to a January 2018 report (pdf) from McKinsey and Company. This report tackles the business case and provides a perspective on how to take action on inclusion and diversity to impact growth and business performance.

This work sheds light on how companies can use diversity as an enabler of business impact.

It also articulates a clear opportunity for companies to promote inclusion and diversity in senior decision-making roles, and specifically in line roles on executive teams.

The report finds:

The statistically significant correlation between a more diverse leadership team and financial outperformance demonstrated three years ago continues to hold true on an updated, enlarged, and global data set
Companies in the top-quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 21% more likely to outperform on profitability and 27% more likely to have superior value creation
Companies in the top-quartile for ethnic/cultural diversity on executive teams were 33% more likely to have industry-leading profitability
Overall, companies in the bottom quartile for both gender and ethnic/ cultural diversity were 29% less likely to achieve above-average profitability than were all other companies in McKinsey and Company’s data set.
Read the full report (pdf).

Scope is recruiting a Public Affairs Manager on a permanent basis in London. Applications close on 28 February 2018.

The post-holder will deliver Scope’s Public Affairs strategy to make sure influencing objectives are seen, heard and acted on by political stakeholders. They will also oversee the development of the Public Affairs team.

What needs to change? The over-representation of women, most ethnic minority groups and disabled people in low-paid, elementary occupations.

This is according to the January 2018 report (pdf) from the Equality and Human Rights Commission. This paper sets out what needs to change and who needs to take action to reduce gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps.

The report finds:

Some elements of pay gaps result from the choices people make about balancing work with other aspects of their lives, though these choices may be dictated or constrained by stereotypes about the roles people, particularly women, are expected to play in society
Part-time work is predominantly low-paid work and therefore the choice to work flexibly inevitably leads to lower pay
The Welsh Government has set clear equality objectives to identify and reduce the causes of employment, skills and pay inequalities
In April 2017, the UK Government introduced gender pay gap reporting for private companies across Great Britain and for public bodies in England
The Scottish and Welsh Governments already required pay gap reporting by public bodies.
Read the full report (pdf).